executive-blog

It takes a lot to be a SoftLayer sales representative. We sit long hours at our desks staring at the computer screen. I should probably attribute this to the reason I cannot stand more than 4 feet away from the microwave at home, if I want to be able to tell what time it is by its digital clock. Sitting at a computer for a miminum of 10 hours per day, and a minimum of 5 days per week can really create stress and tension on your shoulders and back. Well, thank goodness Lance, Steven, and Mike are here to help. Around September 21st, a sales incentive came our way that would change our sales office forever. If we reached a certain goal, we would all receive comfy, cushiony, vibrating massage chairs for each of our desks. And being the *excellent* little sales team that we are, of course we received the prize. The funny thing about it is, they are quite loud. So you know when one of us is "getting our massage on," as Doug Jackson likes to put it. Respectively, we have to turn them off when answering the phones. No customer wants to hear, "H-h-h-h-h-e-e-e-l-l-l-oooo, S-o-f-t-L-a-y-e-r S-s-s-a-a-l-e-ssss...."

The SoftLayer Med Spa comes with other services as well. We all sit in a very close range to one another. This leads to all sorts of possible problems, in regard to spreading colds, etc. On any given day you might find myself or Michael Miller stealing Daniel's Airborn or Mary Hall bringing in cough drops for everyone "just because." Basically, you can always find the cure and remedy you need in one cubicle or another. It has always been a huge mystery as to why Daniel has Febreeze and Lysol at his desk. I like to think he is spreading the love, and expanding our wellness center. "THANKS, DANNY!"

As you can see, we are very well taken care of. The healthier we are, the more time is spent helping our beloved customers!

Our CEO said “so when will our next blog post on GAHAP come out?” By GAHAP he means “generally accepted hosting accounting principles.” He asked for it, so you get it :). If GAHAP bores you, try this on your iPhone. It’s fun!

I could probably squeeze everyone left reading at this point in a Dodge Viper and we could discuss this over lunch. But SL doesn’t provide Vipers to executives so I guess I’ll post it here for you. A balance sheet by definition is a snapshot of the current financial condition of a company. Here's a formal definition. A GAAP balance sheet simply doesn’t portray an accurate picture of the financial condition of a hosting company.

Probably the most important value that a GAAP balance sheet completely misses is the value produced by monthly recurring revenue. By implementing some sort of fair value accounting as I mentioned before this value gets captured. But on that part of the balance sheet, it still doesn’t help someone looking at the dreaded current ratio. So here’s a way to get a measure of this value that matches up to current liabilities on the balance sheet and get a current ratio that better reflects the company’s true financial position.

Since current liabilities include debt that must be paid at any time over the next 12 months, I would propose using statistics to walk forward 12 months and add “Future EBITDA from Existing Customers” as a current asset on the balance sheet. I can sense the shudders of all accountants who are reading this because you’re thinking that this completely abandons the revered principle of conservatism. In hosting, however, this can be done with conservatism in mind by employing statistics. Public accounting auditors employ statistics every day in their work, so the use of statistics is not a foreign concept to accountants.

Here’s how I’d propose hosting companies do this. First, look at the behavior of the current customer base at the beginning of each month regarding customer churn and the purchase of incremental business by remaining customers. Ignore all new customers acquired during the month and add them to the customer base for next month’s analysis. For each month over the past 12 months, analyze how much revenue is lost from customers who leave and net that from how much revenue is recognized from the existing customers who remain. The results of this analysis can be statistically boiled down to give you an idea of how much revenue will come in over the next 12 months even if you do not gain a single new customer during the next 12 months. That’s the principle of conservatism coming into play here. Let’s call this “statistically stable anticipated revenue.” By the way, at SoftLayer, the incremental business from customers who stay is greater than the business lost from customers who leave us.

Second, take a look at EBITDA margins over the past 12 months and work the statistical mojo to get an idea of EBITDA margins going forward. Multiply this margin against the statistically stable anticipated revenue to arrive at “Future EBITDA from Existing Customers.”

Third, add this category as a new line in the Current Assets portion of the balance sheet as well as adding it as a new line in the Stockholder’s Equity portion of the balance sheet. The resulting balance sheet is much closer to the true financial condition of a hosting company than a traditional GAAP balance sheet.

Why is this view more accurate? 1) A hosting company isn’t like a retail store. Like a hosting company, retail stores have repeat customers but the repeat behavior is more sporadic. The customer may decide that the weather is too bad and they’ll run out and get that new pair of shoes another day. Or the weekend may have been too hectic for a grocery store run so they’ll eat out for the next week. With hosting customers, mission-critical things live on their servers and they are usually set up on automatic monthly billings. Repeat sales are much more predictable than for customers of retail stores. This consistent cash flow has real value, and to not capture it on the balance sheet negatively distorts the financial condition of the company. 2) Putting this statistically solid future EBITDA as a current asset allows a better picture of the current ratio because it is from this EBITDA that the current portion of the company’s debt will be paid. This gives a banker, etc., a clear view of whether the company will struggle over the next year to pay them back.

Here’s how a sample summary balance sheet would look before and after this adjustment.

Over the last two years, SoftLayer has grown from nothing to over 10,000 servers and by the end of this year could surpass 30,000 servers if growth continues on its current track. A key component in managing this growth is finding leaders with the ability to scale as the company grows. More often than not, entrepreneurs are good at starting businesses but not good at growing them. In that vein, if you are the leader of a startup, what traits does your management team needs to have if one is to build the biggest, baddest and most valuable company in an industry?

Battle wounds: We all have read the stories about Bill Gates quitting Harvard to start Microsoft, Michael Dell selling servers out of his dorm room, and Larry and Sergey leaving Stanford to start Google. It is very rare that someone can come out of college and start something that becomes the dominant player in an industry. The majority are an amalgamation of our experiences of years of operating any one of a number of businesses. Look for the managers with some scars. Even the aforementioned entrepreneurs are pretty much battle tested by now.

Visionary: As fast as SoftLayer is growing, we better have a pretty good vision of where we are going so we don't run this Porsche off a cliff and into an abyss. We have seen many potential customer IT managers come to us in a panic upon their sudden realization that no more servers can be added to their datacenter because of inadequate planning for power and cooling. And I am not just picking on IT; this applies to the finance function as well. As the CFO, I have to have a vision for what my organization is going to look like all along the way, from the startup phase to an IPO, merger or acquisition or whatever other path this journey takes us.

Communication skills: Today's CFO must be more technically proficient than his predecessors; however, this does not negate for the financial or any other executive to be able to communicate not only with company staff, but customers, vendors, bankers and shareholders as well. As discussed in other blogs, the internet has given all of us the ability to communicate in so many different ways than in the past. The challenge of any manager is to figure out which method of communication is the most effective in a given situation to get the job done and keep the organization moving forward.

Je ne sais quoi: It's a French phrase we as Americans have used over the years to refer to a certain quality someone has that cannot be explained. A good manager has to have this “Presence”. While the internet and email and all forms electronic communication have made the world smaller, to have an impact a leader still needs to be out communicating, listening and understanding to keep the team on the right track. The leader who sits in his office all day can review a lot of data but needs to get out to find what is really going on inside a company. The “Ivory Tower” manager is doomed to failure in today's fast paced business environment.

Rock in times of adversity: For all of us who have participated in startups (and I have done four now), there are going to be tough times. You can count on that. How you react in those situations sends a message about your ability to lead to your staff. As a leader, you have to be the go-to person in tough times. Are you prepared to handle the adversity?

The team: Much like a professional hockey team (I would use football but my son plays hockey and this is my blog), you can't do it all alone. From the general manager on down, the owner/president of a team has to have the ability to attract top notch staff to who he can delegate the work of moving the organization toward the ultimate prize in hockey, The Stanley Cup. If he can't and tries to keeps all the work for himself, he will find himself on the outside looking in.

Do we have the team to scale? So far it appears that we do. Are we going to have to add additional leadership along the way for us to achieve our goals? Absolutely. We have just added a Chief Strategy Officer to the executive management team.

We continue to be confident our management team can provide the leadership needed to grow SoftLayer into an industry leader.

I remember when I figured out that I wanted to be different. My mother took me to see Elvis in concert a year before he died. I knew at that moment I wanted to be a part of something great.

Because of that concert I spent years learning how to play every musical instrument I could get my hands on.

Fast forward thirty something years later and I find myself working with my best friends to build the most innovative hosting company in the world.

I learned after many of my own concerts that it was "making a difference" and not a hit album that I was truly in love with. To steal a line from my favorite book, "I who knew not that I knew not, now know that I know not...and that's progress."

Not unlike the Beatles, SoftLayer is a phenomena that is larger than life. It's a culture. It's a way of life. It's how you do business. It's a necessity.

It is to be continued.....

I now know why Elvis left the building, it was to make room for SoftLayer.

As the leader of the SoftLayer Sales team, I like to think of myself as a well respected yet lovable boss that my employees loves to work with. However as all managers are from time to time, I can sometimes be the least liked person on the team due to the difficult decisions I have to make. So when my beloved team decided to create the JibJab snowball fight and post it on the SL forums, it was no wonder I ended up being the one who got hit where the sun doesn't shine with a snowball.

After seeing their video, I decided to make my own little JibJab video to show the sales team that I know what really goes on in the sales area when I am not around.

Over the years I've had a chance to see a number of different organizations in operation – churches, non-profits, clubs, public companies, and private companies. I've found that in all these organizations, four types of people are needed in order for them to thrive.

I made this observation of four types of people about 20 years ago. I honestly don't remember reading this from a business book or hearing it at a seminar so I don't have a source to cite. But since there's "nothing new under the sun" according to Ecclesiastes, I apologize in advance if you're reading this and this list originated with you over 20 years ago.

Some may think that comfortable new buildings, plush surroundings, or artistic furnishings can help an organization thrive. I'm reminded of the IBM "Innovation Station" commercial. I couldn't find it on their site and the best I could do elsewhere is this Italian version. The surroundings of the people are merely surface cosmetics. The people are the soul of an organization, and each one has a different mix of gifts and talents. It is this mix of gifts and talents that I sort into four groups and the people of the organization must draw from their fundamental gifts and talents for an organization to thrive, regardless of the environmental cosmetics – especially if this is your environment.

Innovators
The first group of folks is the smallest in number. They're the innovators. They can approach a blank whiteboard, pick up a marker and brilliance flows through them onto the board. They're so in touch with markets that they don't just sense the needs felt by the market that need to be filled – they know the needs of the market before the market even feels these needs. The innovators cast the vision for what can be. However, if you ask them to make the vision better, deliver the vision, or maintain it after delivery, more often than not the vision will not be realized because making the vision reality is not a part of their gifts and talents. Making the vision a reality depends on folks from the other groups.

Refiners
These are some of the folks who approach a blank whiteboard and they pick up a marker, but the board remains white. It isn't within them to come up with new and innovative solutions to market needs. But if there's a new and innovative idea on the board, they'll grab a marker and make it better. Maybe the original idea has a logistical problem that keeps it from being viable. They'll solve that logistical problem. Maybe a proposed process is inefficient – they eliminate the bottlenecks. They perhaps can put together a great project plan and GANTT chart. But if you ask them to deliver the project or maintain it in a production environment, you may see failure and frustration. This is where the next groups come to the rescue.

Deliverers
Hail to the Project Managers here. These are the folks that can take a new idea that's been boiled down into a viable plan, marshal the troops, juggle dependencies, assign resources, balance budgets, tackle key tasks personally, hit deadlines, and declare victory when the idea is a reality. Project Managers also need some deliverers to work for them. These are the folks that gobble up a chunk of work on the project plan, put their nose to the grindstone, complete the task, and then return for more. But after the victory party to celebrate successful delivery, asking them to go to the whiteboard and think of something new or asking them to keep what they delivered up and running may be unproductive.

Maintainers
These are the folks that hate to see things break down. Their greatest joy is to do things over and over to keep production up and running and on pace. They love checklists, routine tests, and a predictable work day. I once worked as an automobile insurance underwriter, which is a fancy way to say that I sat at a desk and processed one application after another all day long, day after day, entering data and rating risks. I lasted about a year. This isn't part of my gifts or talents, and I gained a whole new level of respect for this group of people. Without them, the organization breaks down and ceases to function. And as anyone in hosting knows, keeping systems up and running is a key fundamental of the business. The coolest new features don't matter a bit if there's no electricity in the data center.

Dangers of "Pigeonholing"
An organization needs to know which category their folks are fulfilling in their current roles. But in reality, people often have gifts and talents that lend themselves to more than one of these groups. A smart organization will recognize this and allow people to grow and develop rather than sticking them in one spot forever. For example, I'm about equal parts Refiner and Deliverer, and don't ask me to innovate or maintain – you'll be sorry. I'll do best in a role that requires both refining and delivering. When an organization pigeonholes its people, they'll only keep the people so long. They have a way of leaving to find organizations with more fulfilling opportunities.

I can find all four of these groups here at SoftLayer. We also allow some crossover into the functions of other groups. We've found that a good number of our Deliverers are also good Innovators for example. Consequently, as a company, we've lost a grand total of three employees since our beginning.

Relationships are, well, key. This is true in all walks of life. It is especially true in a business environment. At SoftLayer, we understand this. There are two very important types of relationships that we continually try to maintain.

1. Customer Relationships - This is an obvious one. We constantly want to know what our customers have to say. We try to set aside time to call our customers, get to know them, gather feedback, and find out what makes them tick. If there is a way to improve, we want to know about it. Some customers prefer to deal with a specific person, whether it is a Salesperson, Support Technician, or Accounting Representative. While all departments work as a team and we do not specifically assign customers to certain employees, we do enjoy working with you if you specifically enjoy working with one of us! If there is not a little bit of personal communication, we would be your typical, cold corporation. We do not want to be labeled with this stigma. There is no denying that SoftLayer is rapidly growing into a major corporation. But we want to be the major corporation with a small company feel. Each of you is our favorite customer - keep dishing it, we can take it!

2. Employee to Employee Relationships - We would not be where we are if we did not get along well with one another. In fact, we work extremely hard at keeping the utmost respect for one another. Our technicians are some of the best in the industry, our Accounting Representatives some of the most personable, and our Sales team is quite the group of go-getters. So it is easy to keep a good lasting relationship with each and every employee. I can speak for myself, by saying that sometimes I am not the most technical person. It is great to have someone to go to at the drop of a hat to find out about a specific application or hardware question for a customer. The Sales Team is here for anyone to ask about pricing, or to help a customer with an upgrade. And Accounting is always there for any sort of billing need.

In a nutshell we are one big, happy family - that goes for customers and the entire SoftLayer team.

‘Twas the night before Seattle and all through the office
people were stirring, even the bosses.
The Dev guys were grinding on code one last time
in hopes all the errors for sure they would find.
The servers were powered and cabled and racked
and it took us a while to get them unpacked.
And Mike with his checkbook and Gary his stash
both paid our vendors a whole lot of cash.
When out in the parking lot the bass was a thumpin’
I sprang from my chair cuz I knew he was coming.
Over to the window I flew like a flash
pulled down the blinds and made a loud crash.
The lights on his truck gave off a strange orange glow
and I could see some weirdness just down below.
When what to my tired overworked eyes did appear
it was a great big guy and a whole lot of beer.
With his size and his stature, so calm with a grin
I knew in a moment it really must be him.
Faster and faster he came up the walk
he was hootin and hollerin and popin a top.
“Now, Miller! Now, Bud! Now, Coors! and Coors light!
On Corona! on Busch! On Lonestar! and Red Stripe!
To the top of the stairs! To the top of the world!
Drink away! Splash away! Slosh away all!”
Like molasses before a new fallen snow
he made his move to the door, be it very slow
Up in the elevator to the top he flew
with all of the beer and some pretzels too.
And then in a flash I heard in the hall
a pop and a fizz, did he drop them all?
As I ran down the way in hopes for a beer
I stopped in the hall for I knew he was near.
He was dressed in a pimp hat and humming tune
and his clothes were all black with 3 bars on his plume.
A few cases of beer he was trying to hold
and he kept grumbling something about it being cold.
His eyes how they stared; his eye brows so slanted
the beer must be heavy; cuz as he walked he panted.
I knew right at that moment; and just had to pause
I knew at that moment I had seen Lancey Clause.
He handed out beer with a groan and a scowl
he dropped one on his toe and screamed OOUU!
He spoke not a word but kept to his work
he filled fridges and coolers; with nary a burp.
After leaving a trail of beer all around
he went back to the elevator and headed down.
A clank and a thud as he dropped his keys
He went through the door and banged one of his knees.
I heard the door slam on his truck down below
and the tunes of the 80’s started to flow.
But I heard him yell as he drove out of sight
"sell a Seattle Server, Sell them all tonight!"

I just got off the phone with my father. Actually, I got off the phone almost 24 hours ago, and I'm just now becoming calm enough to write clearly about it. My father had a problem: he was attempting to use a computer without supervision. Now, my father is a smart man. He has a master’s degree from Harvard, he has “A Brief History of Time” on his bookshelf, and he consistently left clicks when I ask him to right click. The exact nature of the phone conversation is boring an unimportant, except for one thing. My father needed at one point to save a document in MS Word format. Since he has a Mac, he created the document in Pages. He insisted that his efforts had been wasted since (he claimed) Pages was unable to save in MS Word format. I tried to convince him that it could save not only in MS Word format, but roughly 15 others, but he was unrelenting. Finally I got him to check in the Export menu “to humor me,” and lo and behold, that’s where all his Microsoft formats were hiding. Why do people ask geeks for help, then insist that the help provided is incorrect?

I am expecting to spend at least half of my Christmas visit fixing their multiple computers, synchronizing their files, uninstalling the spyware they were tricked into installing, and generally explaining to them that no, the computer cannot just “know what you want.” And at every turn, I expect to hear dissenting opinions and accusations that I am somehow “hurting” or “confusing” the computer by what I’m doing.

My fellow computer geeks all across the country will also be making that periodic tech support pilgrimage. Just talking to the other programmers in the office I’ve discovered quite an arsenal of tools that they will be bringing with them. From special screwdrivers and thumb drives to entire operating systems and (in one case) a whole new computer, we go into the holiday season armed and ready to set ourselves up for future tech support calls.

Some of my more memorable tech support calls have been from relatives, usually helpless in the basic skills necessary to diagnose the problem over the phone. My aunt made one historic call a few years ago. They had just gotten cable internet in their small country town, and after a week or so she was having problems connecting to the internet. So after hearing about the problem I told her I was going to need her to look at the modem. We spent the next few minutes arguing about whether or not she had a modem, and whether or not the problem could have been caused by never having a modem in the first place. After concluding that she did have a modem, and it was still where the technician left it (under the sink, good one technician! bravo sir!), I asked her “what do the lights on the modem look like?” A valid question I thought, and a relatively simple one. I was expecting to hear a short list of the lights’ labels and whether or not the light was lit. What did I get? “Well, they’re about a quarter inch wide and about a sixteenth of an inch…no…make that about three thirty-seconds of an inch tall, they’re spaced about a half an inch apart…why are you laughing!?”

Another fond holiday memory is the argument I got into with my grandmother. She wanted to “get a house page on the wide world web.” I managed to correct her to “world wide web” without offending her, but then the real fun started. She claimed that “the world wide web is better than the internet!” I tried to explain to her that web pages were only a very small subset of the internet, and that the two terms really didn’t describe the same sort of thing. She decided to put it to a vote. Proudly marching into the living room she announced to the 40-so gathered people “raise your hand if you think the internet is better than the world wide web!” They all stared blankly at her for a short time. Sensing victory, she turned to me and screeched “SEE!?” and stormed out.

So this year I will gather my toolkit, my extra networking cables, my CDs with avg antivirus, firefox, spybot, hijackthis, and zone alarm, my copies of windows XP and Mac OSX, two different linux live CDs, my thumb drives, and my overworked laptop, and make the trek down to my parents house. Please, if you are reading this and you didn’t recognize the items in that list, do yourself and the geek in your life a favor: Find out what operating system you run* and go out and buy yourself the “For Dummies” book that corresponds to that operating system. That can be your gift to your geek this year. Show them that you own the book that holds most of your answers, make a promise to them to at least open the book before you pick up the phone, and you will see what it’s like when someone experiences holiday joy.

Plus, you might learn something.

*Look at the top left corner of your screen, if there’s an apple there, proceed to “Apple”. If not, look at the bottom left. If there’s a start menu, proceed to “Windows.” If there’s neither, pick up the phone and call the person who works on your computer and ask them.

Apple: Click the apple, and go down to “About this mac.” There should be an entry on the first screen called “Operating system.” That’s the operating system you have, you’re done.

Windows: Click the start menu button and look at the left side of the start menu. Your operating system may be listed along the left side. If there isn’t, hold down the windows key on your keyboard and press the “Pause” key (you never use it, it’s in the top right). A window should come up that says “system” at the top. Your operating system will be the first item under “system”

I live in America, and as any American knows, we pipe Christmas Music and Christmas TV and Christmas Movies directly into the brains of as many people as possible to attempt to keep everyone safe during this difficult shopping season.

Admit it: when you and your neighbor are running to Electronics in hope of getting the last Wii from the shelf, sometimes the only thing stopping you from dumping a bag of Skittles in front of him or knocking over a Lego display is the constant barrage of Rudolph and Frosty and other Christmas cheer over the PA.

Unfortunately, unless you are content to give everyone a copy of Dryping for Dummies (By Steve Kinman, SoftLayer Press), you will have to wade into the shopping rush to eek out your Santa sized bag 'o goodies.

Never fear, however! The Retail Industry is there to help! For those who don't want to dive head first into the excitement of Christmas Shopping (which can make even a foray to pick up some toilet paper from Wal*Mart into an exciting 2 hour adventure), nearly every retail outlet is willing to give you a 2" x 3" credit card like piece of plastic stamped with their brand. Yes, the Gift Card.

It's been said that over 60% of American adults have either bought or received a Gift Card, this year. It's a very convenient device. For example, if I figure out that Lance really likes Outback Steakhouse, I can buy a $10 gift card from Outback Steakhouse, wrap it in a $1 Hallmark card (although, sometimes the retail outlets already have such cards (stamped with their logo) available), and give it to Lance. "Merry Christmas!" Sometimes you can even get the card gift wrapped.A gift-wrapped credit card!

We're to the point, now, that simply handing somebody a plastic card is actually considered a thoughtful gift. On the way to work, I heard that any fishing lover would prefer to receive a Bass Pro Shop Gift Card over, say, that Bassomatic '76 they've been talking about.

But, lets be honest... it doesn't take much to choose a gift card. I overhear Lance say he likes steak, I see a Outback Steakhouse card, and bam! Before you can say "Impulse Purchase" I now have an instant gift! Sure, it's not as fulfilling as, say, a box of prime steaks... but this way you can give him more gift cards! And more is better, right?

But the comedy doesn't end there. Have you ever seen a gift card in a usable denomination? Usually I find cards with a value between $10-50. Can you even get a steak meal for $10 at Outback Steakhouse? (Don't forget to include the State and Federal Wallet Excise Tax.) And I'm not talking about that free bread, either. No, what happens is you end up either leaving a trifling amount of money on the card (Your balance is ... twenty five cents), or you end up wrapping your card in a sizable amount of cash. See how neat this is? I bought a $10 card, and Lance will pay the balance of the meal... AND STILL THANK ME FOR IT!

Retailers make MILLIONS of dollars off the trifling amounts that just sit, unused, on gift cards. And gift cards aren't usable at another store, so if I want to buy a $20 book, but I only have a $10 Half Priced Books gift card (and a $10 Outback Card Lance gave me as a Thank You), I'll use the card + $10. You can almost never just spend what's on the card.

Here's some friendly holiday advice: If you know what your friend wants, buy it for him. If you don't, ask people close to him. Even Aunt Myrtle's sweater contains more holiday cheer value than the sweater's monetary value in McDonalds Gift Cards.

Is there a way out of this trap of value-locked slivers of plastic? Indeed there is! If you wish to transfer value to another person without locking them into one choice, give them... CASH! Yes, greenbacks, bucks, dead presidential portraits, green... whatever you call it, United States Federal Notes are accepted by all retailers, in any denomination. Value not used by one retailer can then be spent at another. This value can also be stored up where it may earn interest and combine with more legal tender until a large item can be bought. The best solution for any gift giving problem where "Gift Cards" are suggested as a solution is CASH, such as when you absolutely can't think up something to buy. And it makes a great stocking stuffer. In Bulk. Hint, hint.

Yes, you in the back? What does this mean for SoftLayer? Just because this is a SoftLayer Blog doesn't mean it has to have a SoftLayer moral! But lucky you... I've got one right here: (this weekend only, special holiday financing available!)

Like Gift Cards, each SoftLayer server comes with a bloc of value attached: bandwidth. This valuable commodity makes the servers work. You can have all the processing power in the world, a RAID 75 array with 100 petabytes of space, 40 terabytes of onboard memory, and if you don't have any bandwidth... it's all moot.

Unlike gift cards, however, SoftLayer attaches some real value you can actually use. For many users, even touching the top of the 2 Terabyte bandwidth pipe is a real exercise.

However, sometimes, like gift cards, a customer buys a server with value attached... but simply cannot use it all. Or they put the server 100% on the private network and never use the bandwidth at all (Like that $20 gift card from Sludge Emporium your Granddad gave you last year). Is there any way to salvage this value?

Indeed! The SoftLayer Secret Labs rolled out a new feature a while back: Virtual Dedicated Racks. These VDR's (as we cool SoftLayer Secret Lab Technicians like to call them, because TLAs are cool) allow you to virtually rack a group of servers behind a virtual bandwidth meter. All the attached bandwidth value of those servers are lumped together, like a good 'ol pile o' cash, and the aggregate amount attached to the rack. An example:

Each server comes with 2T bandwidth (generally).

Without VDRs, if server bassomatic.76.example.com only uses 1T of bandwidth, and server auntmyrtle.sweaters.example.com uses up 3T, you end up with a full 1T overage on Aunt Myrtle's site, even though you have a full 1T worth of value on the other server not being used!

With VDRs, the two servers pile their value together, making a 4T rack. Bassomatic.76.example.com uses 3T this month, while Aunt Myrtle's site only uses 1T. Combined, their "rack" uses 4T of 4T, so 4-4 = 0!

Like cash, but unlike gift cards, with VDRs you are able to pool your value to allow the usage of more value at one time. Now how awesome is that?

If you would like to experience the excitement of pooling your bandwidth, talk to your SPS (as we cool SoftLayer Secret Lab Technicians like to call our SoftLayer Professional SLalespersons, because an acronym is still a cool TLA as long as only three letters are capitalized), and get yourself a Virtual Dedicated Rack (make sure to call it a "VDR" when you order it to sound cool).

And let 'em know this post by Shawn got you interested. If I get enough referrals, I'll get the December SoftLayer Referral Outback Steakhouse Gift Card!